


shut up and kiss me

by forgivenessishardforus



Series: First Kiss Collection Fic [2]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, POV Clarke, Post-Season/Series 03, Speculation, Speculative fiction, canonverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-20
Updated: 2016-09-20
Packaged: 2018-08-16 10:17:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8098291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forgivenessishardforus/pseuds/forgivenessishardforus
Summary: “I won’t leave you again,” she says carefully. Her pulse pounds in her ears. “I already promised I wouldn’t.” “That’s not what I meant,” he whispers. The electric charge between them shifts suddenly, in a way she can’t explain; instead of crackling along her skin it sinks into her veins, sings its way to her heart. A force that pulls them together now, two magnets, and when she steps towards him again he stiffens but doesn’t step away. She can see it in his eyes, his fear. It’s clearly exposed now, the abrasive coating of anger he’d used to cover it up peeled away. She’d seen Bellamy vulnerable before, but never quite like this. Never like the next words out of her mouth had the power to break him.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Shut Up and Kiss Me" by Marianas Trench, which popped into my head immediately upon receiving this prompt: "They're fighting and Bellamy grabs Clarke's face and silences her with a kiss." 
> 
> ...not quite sure this is what they were asking for, but I did my best.

They seem to argue a lot.

Of course, they had always argued, but it seems to happen more frequently now—or maybe it was just that things were still not quite healed between them, not quite _right_ , and every argument drove a spike of worry into her heart, that they might never recover to what they had been before.

Add that to the increasing stress of the eminent end of the world and, well—it feels like they spend more time yelling at each other than not. They’ve argued over everything from the serious matter of whether to tell people ALIE’s news (she was glad that he convinced her they should, in the end) to something as ridiculous as whether the other person was getting enough to eat, but she thinks this might be the most absurd of all their arguments.

“For the last time, Bellamy,” she says, with a genuine attempt at remaining calm, “you are not my keeper.” They’re alone in her quarters, and she had been packing for a three-day trip out of Arkadia when he’d come bursting in. Her clothes now lay in an abandoned pile on her bed as she faces him, hands on her hips and eyes narrowed.

He glowers, face visibly darkening. “If you didn’t insist on putting your life in danger, I wouldn’t have to be,” he mutters sullenly.

“I won’t _be_ in danger,” she says, exasperated. “This is a routine checkup, Mom and I do them all the time. It’s perfectly safe.”

With radiation sickness becoming more and more common among the grounders, she and her mother, along with Jackson, were taking frequent trips to nearby villages to provide whatever aid they could. The answer, at this point in time—at least until Raven and Jasper finished cooking up whatever it was they were working on—was _not much_ , but that didn’t stop people from asking for care from the most competent doctors they had. (She didn’t believe she deserved a place in that category, but her mother insisted that her help was needed.)

“You’ve never had to travel into Ice Nation before,” he persists.

“Ice Nation is our ally.”

“ _Barely_.”

“And whose fault is that?” she snaps. “We were so close to reaching a peace accord and you just had to—”

“She was the reason Gina died!” he shouts. “She was the reason they _all_ died. When I could have saved them—” Pain is splintering across his face and instinctively she takes a step forward, to comfort him. She knows, vaguely, who Gina had been to him, what she had meant, but they hadn’t talked much about it. Not yet.

Bellamy steps away from her advance, keeping distance between them. Hurt, she stops, folding her arms across her chest. Energy crackles in the space between them, its nature unknown. That, too, had been more common lately, a charge that seemed to jump from his skin to hers, raising the hair on her arms and causing her heart to thump erratically.

Doing her best to ignore it, she says, “There’s no more time to draw lines in the sand, Bellamy. We can’t afford to be on opposite sides, not when this affects all of us.”

“Oh, stop with the high and mighty act, Clarke,” he spits. “If you remember, you _weren’t here_. I have every right to not want to be friends with the people that were responsible for the deaths of forty-six of ours.”

“You don’t have to be _friends_ with them,” she cries, “you just need to pretend to get along with them while we figure this it out. I just want what’s best for our people. That’s always what I want.”

“Really?” he asks, brow raised, voice cracking. “Because last time things got hard, you _left_. You ran away. And nothing’s stopping you from—”

His words hit her like hammer to the heart. “Is that what you’re afraid of?” she asks, mouth twisting in a poor imitation of a smile. “That I’ll leave again? Choose to make a home with the Azgeda? Because if so—”

“I’m afraid of losing you again!” The words explode out of him, their shockwaves reverberating between them. Bellamy’s eyes widen in surprise, and then in something that might be panic, his mouth hanging slightly open. “I’ve already lost Octavia,” he hastens to add. “I can’t—” He stops, words stuck in his throat.

“I won’t leave you again,” she says carefully. Her pulse pounds in her ears. “I already promised I wouldn’t.”

“That’s not what I meant,” he whispers.

The electric charge between them shifts suddenly, in a way she can’t explain; instead of crackling along her skin it sinks into her veins, sings its way to her heart. A force that pulls them together now, two magnets, and when she steps towards him again he stiffens but doesn’t step away.

She can see it in his eyes, his fear. It’s clearly exposed now, the abrasive coating of anger he’d used to cover it up peeled away. She’d seen Bellamy vulnerable before, but never quite like this. Never like the next words out of her mouth had the power to break him. He swallows, muscle in his jaw twitching, and averts his gaze.

And suddenly she understands the meaning of the strange energy between them, and why they’d both tried to fight it, tried to fight each other. Because how can they dare to unleash this monstrous, beautiful _thing_ , with all its breathtaking potential, when they’ve both lost so much? When there’s still more to lose? When they’re grieving and hurting and frightened and angry? When the world is ending and it’s their duty to stop it?

How did they both think they could continue to fight it?

Briefly she thinks of Lexa, of her last words. _Life is about more than just surviving._ The thought is accompanied by a hollow ache, a sense of loss, but no longer the gaping chasm of grief that had been there before. And that's how she knows.

“Bellamy,” she says, and stops. How to put into words the wordless realization that’s expanding within her chest? His gaze flickers to her, and away again.

The words appear in her mind as she watches him, traces the spattering of freckles across his cheeks, the hard line of his compressed lips, the long, smudged shadow of his lashes. Before she can reconsider, she says them aloud.

“Bellamy,” she repeats, “I think I’m in love with you.”

His eyes snap to hers, wide with surprise, expression frozen. Panic, hot and sharp, flares in her chest. She had reserved the words for those who were dying; they usually only squeezed their way out of her heart when it was too late, when there was nothing left to lose.

But Bellamy is her best friend, and if she’s wrong there’s _everything_ to lose.

“I know you still miss her,” she says quickly. “Gina, I mean. It hurts and I understand that, really I do. And I know you’re worried about Octavia, and about _everyone_ , and I know we have no _time_. Maybe it’s ridiculous to even be thinking about this now, but I don’t know if—”

She stops talking, because Bellamy has grabbed her face between his hands and is fitting his lips over hers. Her surprise lasts for a fraction of a second before she melts against him, the electricity that had been sparking between them for weeks finally grounding itself through the connection that binds them together, flooding through her in a rush of warmth.

Kissing Bellamy is as natural as breathing. No thought involved, no effort, just the soft, exploratory movement of her mouth on his. They feel rooted together in this cold, colourless room, his hands on the small of her back and hers tangled in his curls. A moment of peace, the calm in the centre of the storm. In her months on Earth, she had never before encountered something that had brought her such immediate stillness, picking up all the worries that plagued her and carrying them away.

When they’re both breathless, Bellamy pulls away just far enough to lean his forehead against hers. “Jesus, Clarke,” he murmurs, “I thought you’d never shut up.”

“Well, you solved that problem,” she says, dazed.

“You meant it?” he asks, suddenly shyly uncertain. “You actually—” His voice is full of disbelief, and it breaks her heart to know why: as long as she’s known him, Bellamy has believed he’s not worthy of love, so rooted in his own self-hatred that the idea of anyone finding worth in him is foreign. She’s done her own part to play into that perception, and hardly a day goes by that she doesn’t regret it.

In answer, she kisses him again, slow and sweet. “Yes,” she tells him, “I meant it.”

He’s smiling when they break apart again, eyes warm and bright. “If you didn’t know,” he says, “I’m in love with you, too.”

“I might have guessed,” she replies, an answering smile splitting her face, splitting her in half so that the warmth he’d instilled in her spills out. She leans up to press a kiss to his cheek, and then brushes her lips against the shell of his ear. “But I’m still going to that village.”

“I guess I can’t stop you,” he says, still sounding less than pleased. “Just, don’t—”

“I’ll stay safe,” she reassures him. “And I’ll come home, I promise.”

She would always come home, if he was there for her to come home to.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos/comments are always, always appreciated!
> 
> Find me on tumblr: forgivenessishardforus


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